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Best Tools To Test Your Website Security

Data hacks and identity theft have been making the headlines in recent years, making the security of your website more important than ever before. This is especially true if you handle financial transactions through your company's site, as you'll be processing your customers' sensitive financial data. Fortunately, you have many tools available to you to help ensure your website is as secure as possible.

This service is free, and there is no registration required to test your site. You'll receive your results via email and can download a security badge to display on your site for your customers' peace of mind.

Vega is a security scanner designed for use with web applications. It provides an easy-to-use interface that makes the process as streamlined as possible, even for those who are unfamiliar with web security testing.

It can help identify cross-site scripting, SQL injection and other application vulnerabilities. This open source application is backed by a powerful API for even greater customization and capability.

Metasploit makes use of the latest ethical hacking techniques to detect website vulnerabilities. This is what is known as penetration testing and has become more and more popular in recent years.

If ethical hackers can break through your website's security protocols, then data thieves undoubtedly will be able to as well. Identifying these vulnerabilities early on can help you make the changes needed to secure your site from the latest threats.

Sucuri is a free website scanner that can detect viruses and malware. It can also identify and website errors or broken code, as well as out-of-date software. It can even alert you if your website has been blacklisted.

This tool is compatible with a variety of popular website-building platforms, including WordPress, Drupal, Magento, Joomla and more.

This tool analyzes the configuration of your SSL web server and is designed specifically for secure (https) websites. You'll get in-depth analysis of your URL to help you identify vulnerabilities. This includes your site's expiration day, SSL/TLS version, overall security rating, protocol details and more.

This is another free service, and neither your personal information nor your test results are used for any purpose other than to provide you with the analysis you have requested.

Wapiti scans for a variety of vulnerabilities in web applications. Similar to penetration testing, this application injects data to see if various scripts are vulnerable to attacks. It is capable of detecting file disclosure and inclusion vulnerabilities, site configuration issues, and a variety of injection complications.

It is important to note, though, that while free, this is a command-line application. This may be a bit difficult for beginners to get the hang of and is better suited to advanced users.

Wireshark is another penetration testing application. It specializes in analyzing network protocols, getting into the tiniest details of your packet information and decryption.

It's compatible with all the major operating systems, including Windows, OS X, Linux, Solaris and more. The application is free to download and can be viewed through a user interface or in TTY-mode TShark utility.

Skipfish crawls through your website, one page at a time, to detect any vulnerabilities in the code. This open source web application is free to download and use, and it is optimized for HTTP handling.

It is capable of handling up to 2,000 requests per second without putting a strain on your CPU. Compatible with Windows, MacOS X, Linux and FreeBSD operating systems, this security application can detect even subtle flaws, like blind injection vectors.

Detectify is a suite of more than 100 automated security tests for your website. In total, it checks for over 700 distinct vulnerabilities. The team of ethical hackers behind the platform continually update the scans to detect the latest threats as they emerge, keeping your website secure in real time.

You can test Detectify for free for 21 days, after which you'll have to pay a recurring membership fee for the ongoing security service.

Siteguarding is a free online tool for detecting viruses, malware, phishing, injected spam, defacement and more. It can also help you clean and remove these threats from your website to ensure your security. The company also provides web hosting services, for a complete web security management package.

These are just a few of the many website security options you have available to you, so there is no excuse for not having your website provide the latest security protections for your customers. Try out a few scans today to identify areas where your company website might be vulnerable so that you can regain control.

Ken Lynch is an enterprise software startup veteran, who has always been fascinated by what drives workers to work and how to make work more engaging. Ken founded Reciprocity to pursue just that. He has propelled Reciprocity's success with this mission-based goal of engaging employees with the governance, risk, and compliance goals of their company in order to create more socially minded corporate citizens. Ken earned his BS in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT.